The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowed the scope of a federal bribery law frequently used in corruption cases against local officials. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices sided with former Indiana mayor James Snyder, who contended that the law criminalizes only quid pro quo bribery, not rewards given after an official act.
Bribery Law Doesn’t Criminalize Gratuities : A Landmark Decision
In favoring Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, the Supreme Court continued its recent trend of raising the bar for prosecuting corruption. This decision resolves a circuit split regarding Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Section 666, which prohibits “corruptly” soliciting anything of value with the intent of being “influenced or rewarded.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, emphasized that the government’s interpretation of the statute would “radically upend gratuities rules and turn §666 into a vague and unfair trap for 19 million state and local officials.”
Examples and Implications
The high court illustrated its point with a hypothetical scenario: “A county official could meticulously comply with her county’s local gratuities rules — say, by declining a $200 gift card but accepting a $100 gift card from a neighbor as thanks for her diligent work on a new park — but still face up to 10 years in federal prison because she accepted a thing of value in connection with an official act.”
